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I well remember standing in our family room with my Dad and brother,  
also standing, as the first pictures were broadcast back....one of  
those things you never forget.

If I'm not mistaken, they did have the computing power; it was doing  
things 'on the fly' so to speak, when they reverted back to the good  
ol' slide rule...one of the interesting things might be to have a  
little microchip (pic chip), or a cellphone (but you can't look  
inside) - even the little humble microchip has more computing power  
than the entire apollo program (that's what I've read, anyway).

And don't believe everything you see in the movies!


	


On May 20, 2009, at 10:59 AM, Nina Nolan wrote:

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>
> Hi All,
>
> I am thinking about creating a cart interpretation related to the  
> 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.  Basically, I want to  
> give visitors an appreciation for how hard it was to get a man on  
> the moon, especially given the available technology.   
> Unfortunately, I am one of those people who were born after the  
> Apollo program ended, and don't have direct experience of this  
> amazing accomplishment in human history.
>
> One of my favorites scenes from the movie Apollo 13 is when the  
> engineers have to calculate the return trajectory, and they all  
> whip out slide rules!  It blows my mind to realize that we sent  
> people 240,000 miles away but didn't have the computing power to  
> figure out sines and cosines!
>
> One idea I have is to have examples of everyday items from 1969 and  
> compare them to what's available today.  It should be fun to see  
> the differences between telephones, cameras and portable music  
> players.
> I would love to hear others' input on what might work as a cart  
> interpretation and what other interpretations/activities people are  
> doing around this anniversary.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Nina
>
> -- 
> Nina Nolan
> Coordinator of Exhibit Hall Interpretation
> Museum of Science
> Science Park
> Boston MA 02114-1099
> (617) 589-0356 (ph)
> (617) 589-0389 (fax)
>
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